And What Does Grief with God Look Like?

What is it that causes you to grieve? Is it the loss of a loved one or another traumatic event? For me, the day that causes me to pause is February 22, the day I did not die. Since then, I’ve learned about grief with God.

For a long while, every conversation led back to the accident. But these days, I don’t often think about it.

Till the anniversary, then something inside remembers.

The screeching brakes that jolted me awake

In Kenya, our truck bounced then rolled down an embankment before emptying us out onto the ground.

I’d closed my eyes on a typical afternoon. Now, I opened them to a real-live nightmare.

Outside the vehicle, I leaned against the back tire. How did I get there? The truck rocked and a voice screamed, “Get out of the way; it’s gonna roll!”

Who was that?

A few feet away, my tent mate, Kathy, crept in the opposite direction. It must have been her. She always knew what to do.

With the metallic taste of blood in my mouth, I crawled twenty feet before looking back at my home away from home, crushed like a bug.

My friends scattered across the red dirt.

As if on drugs, I felt disconnected from my body as I gazed down at it. My sarong was gone, but bikini intact.I lifted my head to the sky and acknowledged a drizzle with a shiver that zigzagged down my back.

In slow motion, I bent my head toward my throbbing hand.Noticing a deep groove across the base, I peered at the muscles and capillaries which were like transparent layers of a medical book.

One by one, I pulled the seven metal bracelets embedded in my palm out of the sticky congealing blood and set them on the ground.

That’s when my friend Andrea filled my field of vision. I jumped. She assessed my injuries and wrapped my hand with a towel. “Don’t worry, “ she muttered before running to nurse another, “It’s only a scratch.”

“It’s only a scratch,” echoed that same detached voice that had screamed. It wasn’tKathy’s, it was mine.

“Don’t stop talking,” Kathy begged, her back wedged up against my side. We didn’t yet know her pelvis was broken.

In the backseat of that stranger’s car, no words came. She and I often withdrew from the group and sang songs while we washed our clothes in a river. So, I eked out a bit of our favorite Eurhythmics song, Sweet Dreams.

I sang about traveling the world looking for that elusive thing that brought happiness.

Without seeing the irony, I’d done what the song said, and there I was speeding toward a hospital far away from home.

Inside the emergency room

A nurse stitched my hand and my head then x-rayed my back and my knee but refused to give me painkillers.

“You might have a concussion,” she said as she wheeled me to a ward and put me to bed.

I whimpered like a puppy, unable to sleep as the shock wore off.

The numbness had helped, hidden the pain. It slowed my response time emotionally as well as physically, my kind of defense mechanism. Agony now replaced it. I rocked back and forth and moaned.

I tried to remember, then hoped to forget.

I’ve seen pictures after accidents

. . . but since I was in this one, this affects me differently.

It doesn’t tell the story of my emotions. Thirty years later, I still feel the chaos, the roll of the truck.

When you’ve been through trauma, no one else knows the pain except God. He’s the only one who understands what it’s like for you.

Has time healed all wounds?

Of course not, how come people say that?

The accident will never unhappen. It’s just like all of the other painful things we’ve been through.

So what do we do?

I think about people who say, “I just put it behind me and never think about it again.”

Can you do that?

Where does all the pain go?

Photo by Huy Phan from Pexels.

I don’t want to judge anyone who deals with grief that way. But that didn’t work for me. Of course, I don’t know what it’s like for anyone else, but in my accident,

I lost a friend so I know what that feels like.

My friend, Anna, and I talked about dying the week before

That day I’d waited in the usual line we found at a crowded phone bank in Africa, this time in Uganda. I waited for an hour just so I could have a few minutes of scratchy connection overseas.

I’d started having these thoughts. Someone died. I knew it.

Never the ideal place to hear bad news, but the only opportunity to phone home, is where I heard my mom confirm my worst fear.Covering my ear with my left hand, I screamed into the receiver, “Who, who died?”

“Your cousin. Hit by a truck on the way to work. New Year’s Eve.”

The call dropped leaving me alone with all the emotion and my questions.

Did she see it coming? Did it hurt? Where was she now?

After the call, Anna and I searched for food

In a rare opportunity, we found comfort in a restaurant with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth.

Neither of us wanted to think about mortality or what the end meant, so far away; yet, apparently, so close for her.

We talked about our travels and the losses we’d experienced.

Grief wove its way through our conversation like black embroidery thread. It’s like together we stared at the back of a messy cross-stitch. But now, having flipped it over, I got a peek at the image on the front.

She and I had no way of knowing how soon her turn would come, but this conversation felt somehow connected when she was gone.

Three days after the accident, we held a memorial service for her.

There we sat, our ragtag group in the front two pews of the church across the street from the Grosvenor Hotel, staring at the minister like a herd of deer in the headlights of death.

GRIEF WITH GOD, STEP 2: Write

My cure from grief with God looks like the excerpt you just read from my soon-to-be-released book.

Writing has always helped me explain things to myself. There’s something about being able to put trauma into words.

When I tell God everything I know, explaining it in as much detail as I can–you know, how I hurt, who I’m mad at, and the anguish I carry–something happens.

God already knows.

But there’s something about this process that heals me every time I write until there’s nothing left to say.

If you haven’t experienced the healing that comes from this,

Try it?

GRIEF WITH GOD, STEP 3: Feel

Yup, you heard me right.

Am I someone who whips herself as penance? No. But believe it or not, this is key.

We heal when we feel the pain.

So when my body reminds me of this date each year, I make a date with myself. The details look different each time. Maybe I sit with my journal and my Eurythmics CD.

GRIEF WITH GOD, STEP 4: Thank God

I thank God for the second chance and I thank Him for teaching me how to cope with grief, for healing me. I thank Him for simple things, like all the todays I wouldn’t have had and for what I get to do and the place I do it and the people who make that possible.

Once I get started, it’s hard to stop.

Thankfulness shifts my perspective every single time.

GRIEF WITH GOD, STEP 5: Listen

As I lay in bed early Saturday morning with my Bible and my journal, I kept remembering a verse about how God knows the number of our days before we’re born. And He knows the good deeds He’s prepared for us to do.

Thank God for Google.

And Bible Gateway where, with one click, I can search for the verse and read it in lots of translations.

Look how cool this one is:

“We have become his poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance ourdestiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!” (Ephesians 2:10, The Passion Translation)

Guess what?

God really does love you. He loves you so much that He wants to heal you in all the ways you need it.

I hear your heart as if I’m still sitting next to you in class at grad school. I’m copying your words into my journal because they say what I haven’t been able to: “Writing has always helped me explain things to myself. There’s something about being able to put trauma into words.” and “When I tell God everything I know, explaining it in as much detail as I can–you know, how I hurt, who I’m mad at, and the anguish I carry–something happens.”

My 5-year-old relative just got hit and killed by his mother’s ex-boyfriends’s truck. Your words gave me words about how something inside of me remembered my son’s death and the grief I felt 39 years ago.

And I’m finally in the process of producing the eight Hearts Unfolding encouragement cards I first had the vision for 33 years ago. The current one is based on Isaiah 66:13 “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” Reading your story encouraged me to keep moving forward with this dream.

Dear Sweet Lord Jesus, please be with Sharon every step of this journey. You know exactly what she needs as You carry her through this grief. We partner our agreement asking for Your blessings, the kind that can only come through super hard times in Jesus’ name.

Lord, You’ve promised to be Sharon’s comforter. I pray for your comfort for Sharon and for all the others who loved this precious little boy. Please let them know your love and presence in beautiful and extraordinary ways each day and each evening during this painful time.

I also pray for the one who’s truck crashed into him. I can’t imagine it.

Lord, thank you for giving us eternity. Thank you for giving us your living hope.

I just had a conversation with one of the other who was on the trip about that. She didn’t know how to share something like that with her Mum from so far away so she couldn’t call. The embassy did. No easy ways to deal with this kind of stuff.

Don’t know if I had heard this before Liz. Must have been traumatic. I’ve had many uncle’s aunts and cousins pass away. Some tragically. ( I’m one of 32 grandchildren on my mother’s side) A bunch on my father’s side but never knew any of them) Funny though, my psyche just doesn’t bring the events up. Must have been something to do with my upbringing. Even as a young boy I never felt homesick. I find life joyful, a blessing, and frequently the opposite … hard). I feel like Paul… I’d rather be in heaven … But so long as I can serve Him I’ll stay. Not really that long anyway and I do believe the best is yet to come.🙂

Amazing story….don’t remember all those details , so was very enlightening! So glad you were saved so sorry about your friend Anna😫 Thank you for sharing and helping others with their grief. Miss you Love Deb💞

Goodness, what a story to have stored in your memory bank. I know you look forward to seeing your friend again in our eternal home. I also thank our Lord for allowing you to live on earth longer. I got to meet you!

I got to spend some time in Kenya, too. Unique experiences and good memories for me, though. It does puzzle me as to why the Masai man didn’t help you, unless perhaps he was already aware of help coming. Still, kind of a strange response, and I love how real your thoughts were: some warrior you are.

I loved every part of this post. Thank you. Your last paragraph is fabulous!

That is an interesting perspective, wondering about the Masai man. I never thought about that.

Although, later in the week, as we limped around the city using crutches and all bandaged up, the locals seemed really surprised. I guess they don’t usually see the tourists banged up. We bonded over our boo-boos with some.